Clause 13 - Prevention and control of health care associated infections
Health Bill
10:15 am
Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Health; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
I will try to deal briefly with the amendment. As the hon. Member for Westbury hinted, the Committee has been in “may” and “shall” territory before. I understand and sympathise with the spirit of the amendment, which makes it clear that if we are to have chunks of legislation about codes of practice, we want to be sure that they will be enforced. We would therefore much rather that the Bill said “shall”, so that we knew for certain that the Government would get on with delegating the task of producing the code of practice, than the Government simply having the power to delegate the task but not necessarily doing so. In a sense the debate is slightly artificial, because none of us doubts that the Government will act on legislation once they have passed it, but the amendment prompts us to ask why the Bill was drafted in such a way.
The hon. Member for Westbury mentioned the Healthcare Commission report, which is germane to this part of the Bill and to our discussion of codes of practice. When I was interviewed about the report at five past midnight, I was on with someone from MRSA Action UK, which is an action group representing people who, in many cases, have suffered bereavement as a result of MRSA and hospital-acquired infections. I do not speak for the members of that group, but having met them, as other hon. Members have, I am sure that people who have been victims of those various bugs would want not permissive legislation, but legislation that required tough action to be taken.
As we shall discuss on later amendments, it is not sufficient simply to say that there should be a code of practice. As the hon. Gentleman hinted, although I am not sure how far he would take the logic of his argument, codes of practice are fine and good and might be broadly beneficial, but there appears to be no teeth. I am perfectly happy with the amendment, but on its own—the way in which we conduct our proceedings inevitably means that it is not necessarily appropriate to group it with other amendments—it does not cut the mustard. It is not enough simply to say that there must be a code of practice, because there is little sanction or penalty in the Bill. We may insist in the amendment that there should be a code of practice, but nothing might happen if people breach it. We will come to the enforcement of penalties later.
In supporting the amendment, therefore, we are certainly not saying that it goes far enough. However, we want at least to ensure that a code of practice is introduced as a result of our deliberations.